Victory
by BlondeChick2009
Summary: Loki made a proposal he hopes Thor won't refuse. (Slight Loki/Sigyn pairing).


**A/N:** I have posted this story elsewhere. When I wrote it, I had had the idea for a while. I had so much background built up for Loki and Sigyn's meeting and agreements but wished to keep this short and sweet and between the brothers. This is simply how I would envision Sigyn and Loki, knowing nothing of the mythology or comics. I'm using the characters as they appear in the Thor movies. Takes place after Thor 2 and when I imagine Thor discovers Loki's latest ploy. Includes spoilers (but let's be honest, you've seen Thor 2 by now).

**Victory**

Loki stood straight as a pillar, hands clasped tight behind his back. His gaze was fixed on the wall before him as he awaited the summons. Every muscle was at attention and even his throat strained when he swallowed. He barely moved otherwise.

As he waited, though, he was vastly appreciative that this time he wasn't shackled. He was no prisoner at all. If only his tense and agitated mind would recognize this fact…

Yet, Loki thought, being led in chains was fast becoming an infinitely more appealing scenario than what he was about to do.

The door swung open and two guards entered. They took up stances on either side of the portal and nodded. Loki relaxed his arms and sauntered in, chin raised and eyes forward. He wanted to have every appearance of looking down on Thor as he approached; even if the other was seated high on the golden throne.

It still stung. That he had been ousted for a second time by his blundering fool of a step brother twisted Loki's insides in a way he had long since learned to hide on the outside. He made sure Thor saw only cool conceit as it came to meet him. If it bothered the seated man at all that Loki acted the king still, he did not show it.

Perhaps my liege is learning a thing or two, Loki conceded.

Halfway through the hall and Loki was beginning to hate the length. Even in its broken state, the throne room still made one feel clumsy and small. Not the way one wanted to feel when on display. The soaring columns, now lost, had made lesser men quail where Odin had not. Usually a man was jelly by the time he made it to the foot of the throne steps. It made kneeling that much easier.

Unfortunately for Thor, Loki had not been born to kneel. When he made it to the bottom of the throne stairs, he simply gave the king a shallow bow. Knowing better, Thor permitted this.

"And what concession does my brother come bearing?"

Begrudgingly, Loki admitted to himself that Thor was getting better at being king. It was ill-humor that the man who wanted the throne not fit it so well. While he…

But jealousy was not for this moment. He had come to humbly ask his majesty a simple yes or no question.

"Your—grace," Loki started carefully. "I come to ask you for consent to…"

He trailed off, worrying at his bottom lip.

"You've never been one to dally on pretenses, Loki." Thor shifted in his seat so he could better glare at the man before him. "You've never once asked for anything. Not from me, not from Odin. You simply take."

Several times Loki had opened his mouth to interrupt, but Thor would not bear it.

"You took the throne, not once, but twice. You took lives and liberties undue to you on Midgard. You took Asgard's king."

Loki winced and averted his eyes. Odin. He was alive, just sleeping. But being stuffed into the dungeons below the dungeons had not agreed with him well whilst Loki wore his face.

But Thor had gone to Earth to be with that woman, Jane. Loki had, for a moment, believed himself safe.

Until Thor came back on a son's intuition. Loki curled a lip at the memory. He hadn't been able to fool Thor a second time. Damn his intuitions. Loki hated being envious of anyone, especially Thor. Lacking such familial instincts made him weaker than his step brother in spirit. And now it seemed Thor was growing smarter, too. He had seized the throne, declaring himself rightful king while Odin slept, consoling Jane by placing her by his side in Asgard.

Loki had found himself abandoned. Rather than prison for a second time, Thor simply ignored him. He stripped him of access to the palace and cut off contact with him. He stopped calling him brother and referring to Odin as 'our father'. Surprisingly, the indifference had burned.

Now, Loki raised falsely sad eyes to Thor's. "I have no right to ask anything of you. I came here, hoping beyond hope, that you might at least hear my request."

Thor looked reluctantly interested. "Go on."

Loki took a deep breath. "I wish to marry."

Loki had underestimated the silence that he had predicted would meet this request. At no point did Thor burst into the stuttering incoherent grunts he had come to know him for. He remained eerily quiet. He studied Loki until the latter began to feel uncomfortable. This wasn't going in his favor.

He decided to plow onward. "Believe it or not, Thor, I have come to love someone. I wish to take her as my bride."

Thor's expression did not change. "Who?"

Loki bowed his head. "Sigyn."

She was as pale as he was when he shook with rage. Her hair was as black as the depths below the Rainbow Bridge. Her eyes were the deep blue of the vault of heavens at moonrise. Her very name bespoke of victory and her voice sounded as sweet. She was as cunning and calculating as he, as intelligent and as ambitious. The warmth of her eyes could run cold at a moment's notice, the balmy sea becoming ice and freezing everyone along with it.

She was intrigue and challenge and longing. She was a trance, and Loki could not wake. Did not want to wake.

She was power.

Her house was old, her family nothing but graceful force. An alliance between the two would guarantee a seat of authority. The temptation and need for the throne resulted in a proposal she did not refuse. Time softened them both. Months of removal from Thor and the palace had pushed Loki further into her life. Where ambition had driven him there, sentiment had made him stay.

Loki returned to the present and the baleful, empty hall.

"I had meant to fix this place up," he chided, eyes casting insolently around the construction.

"Loki," Thor warned.

"Right." Loki searched for a way to start. He could say as much as he felt. He was not one to bare his soul to any man. And common sense dictated that he not give too much away about her family history. Although, Thor probably knew something about the family, being king and all.

"There isn't much to say on the matter. I love her."

Thor looked cynical. And justly so, Loki thought. He doesn't believe me.

"I know you don't believe me. But would you have believed that you would fall to Earth in exile a few years ago and find your other half? Especially," Loki felt anguished without meaning to, "when you thought your other half was that stupid chair?"

Thor blinked. Loki began to pace. "I met Sigyn when you banished me from these walls half a year ago. Perhaps there is truth in the songs; a woman's heart can tame any man's wildness. I feel different, and it is strange, oh yes how strange it is, but…I like it." Loki stopped and looked up at Thor again. "I really, truly do."

Desperation was crowding in. He told himself it was desperation to be believed…

"I know not what else to say that might make you hear me." He stopped pacing and raised his palms plaintively.

Thor had watched him stalk to and fro, had watched the agitation in his gesticulations, had listened to the anxiety creeping into Loki's explanation. He laced his fingers and brought his hands to his chin, deliberating.

"So, you want this thing from me. A chance anew. This Sigyn."

Loki swallowed, his eyes skillfully downcast. "Yes. I want love all my own." He looked up at his brother-by-word, beseeching. "I am tired. Tired of wanting that which I cannot have. I want this woman…" Here, Loki's emerald eyes slid of their own accord. He stared at nothing, and saw only Sigyn. "This woman who makes me feel as if a king."

Another silence passed between the two men. A silence so thick and sure of its purpose that Loki was certain his thundering heart would soon echo through the hollow gallery. He almost felt compelled to laugh. Surely if Thor heard the organ threatening to explode from Loki's chest, he'd quip about not knowing the mischief maker had a heart. The sensation shocked even him. His lips opened on a nervous inhale, and the sound ricocheted off the scaffolding. He looked up at Thor, enthroned and severe, much the king his father had been. Loki felt his eyes widen in plea.

He was _begging. _Begging for fear he be starved of the opportunity to love. After everything he had already been denied, the Asgardian throne twice and reign over Midgard, this probable loss seemed worse; a further punishment for his many crimes. It winded him.

Yet Thor's stern frown had softened into a near smile when Loki had gasped. As if he took the sound as an admission of the truth. Loki's face warmed at the thought of being emotionally bare before his old enemy, but even he could not refute what his slip acknowledged: that Silver Tongue had found someone that rendered him speechless.

Loki straightened and looked Thor squarely in the eye, hands clasping behind his back in sad mimicry of his original confidence. "I have no more pretty words to pamper your ears with or raise my severely flattened esteem, _sire._ I simply await permission or refusal."

Thor relaxed into the hard throne, a small harrumph of amused laughter escaping. "There's my brother. Tell me, is your Sigyn prepared for such biting sarcasm?"

In that moment Loki almost forgot himself. His shoulders sagged in blessed relief, his face lit up, thanks and well wishes at his teeth. But he rallied and steadied himself, saying instead, "I assure you, she quite enjoys my biting."

Thor threw back his head and roared. Loki grinned in spite of himself.

The king leapt to his feet after his round of mirth and alighted down the marble steps, practically bounding to Loki's side. Clapping a hand on the slighter man's shoulder, he beamed. "I will always look for a reason to make you happy, Loki, and to retire your taste for deceit."

Then he became serious, gripping Loki and staring him down. "You love Sigyn?"

It was so easy. "Yes."

Thor smiled again and playfully hit Loki's shoulder. "Then a wedding you shall have. Feasts and celebrations. You can wed here," Thor gestured around the hall. "Er—as long as you pick a date after renovations are complete." He paused before adding, "Don't make me regret you a fourth time, aye?"

Loki laughed. "You have my eternal thanks," he grasped Thor's hand. "Brother."

Thor beamed brighter than before and hit Loki again. He strode off bellowing wedding songs and shouting the news for all to hear. Loki rolled his eyes, still grinning.

When silence returned, Loki allowed his walls to come down and the happiness to spill in. He leaned against the last remaining column, his lips once more spreading into one of his rare genuine smiles.

Sigyn might not have been everything he had dreamt of in years past, but damned if she wasn't everything he dared hope for now.

He began his walk back to where she waited for him, reveling in that he _had_ someone to wait for him. On his way, Thor's wedding songs came floating back through the din, and he found himself singing under his breath.

"Here comes the bride, all dressed in white," he crooned to the empty gallery.

"Sweet in her gown, she'll bring me my crown."


End file.
